


Bones / Pulse

by halfpastdead



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Death, Dissection, Ectober Week 2020, Ficlet, Gen, Ghost Hunters, Hurt No Comfort, Mad Science, Paranormal Investigators, Surgery, ectober, ectober procrastination, not allowed my own tech at work so i wrote this by hand smh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27219907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpastdead/pseuds/halfpastdead
Summary: While she looked for Phantom's bones, Maddie found his pulse. Danny had considered his death before. Under his mother's blade, it seemed he'd die in his family's basement after all. (Ectober Week 2020, Day 2)
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton
Comments: 5
Kudos: 86





	Bones / Pulse

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for Day 2 of Ectober Week 2020 is a dissection ficlet inspired by both prompts! Minor gore, mostly angst.

“You’re dead. Dead things don’t feel.”

Danny struggled against the restraints, as though his intangibility would return if he just pushed hard enough.

“I do.”

“Well, then. Scream all you want. This lab is soundproof.” The sterile, white light flickered as it reflected in the scalpel that Maddie turned in her hands. “Makes no difference to me.”

“What if—” Danny stammered, “What if I told you that I wasn’t dead?”

Maddie huffed, crinkling her nose. “You’re a _ghost_.”

The way she said it chilled Danny to his core. She was right, he was a ghost. And nothing else mattered. He was everything she hated, a corruption of a living form. His mother was going to end him.

He couldn’t scream if he wanted to. Instead, he quieted. Suddenly, he didn’t recognize himself anymore. He felt a wave of panic building, yet couldn’t move a muscle. Here he was, what Danny Fenton had become. Permanently trapped in the hazmat suit he died in, or whatever someone could call the accident. His glow was so bright. Too bright, and there was green. There was so much _green_. His pulse rang in his ears.

Maddie knew Phantom had bones, and she was determined to get to them. In her research since the portal had been activated, she’d never seen a ghost with as complex an ectoplasmic structure. The ghost boy was about to be her breakthrough.

The scalpel sliced through Danny’s wrist with ease, catching on the bone. He’d forgotten to breathe, gasping when he registered the source of the ectoplasm, its acidic color assaulting his vision—it was his. His lips curled over his teeth. The fire in his wound made him wish, for the first time, that he was a full ghost. If he was an evil, disgusting creature either way, he’d choose to end the pain. He’d choose eternity in the Ghost Zone. He’d choose all of it over this lab, his namesake. Could he even call himself by that name? Now at her disposal, he couldn’t conceive of what Maddie would do to him if the words “Danny Fenton” left his mouth. Her son’s name. No, he was a ghost. He was no child of hers. He was no Fenton.

“Phantom…” His other name broke his trance. She was addressing him _by name_. The blade fell to the steel examination table, slowly sinking into green.

Maddie watched ectoplasm ooze from her incision. It was rhythmic, as though it were blood from a creature with a _pulse_. Danny flinched as her gloved hand hovered above his chest. She placed it on his ribcage and he shuddered, their eyes meeting: terror and astonishment.

Her palm shifted to his left and she pressed firmly, deathly silent. It took a few moments, a few weak thumps. Danny whimpered when he realized what she’d found.

It wasn’t the first time he’d considered his own death. He didn’t know what exactly would be left, but figured he’d go on as a ghost. There was ectoplasmic energy in him from the shock and it couldn’t just disappear. He _wouldn’t_ just disappear. His heart was how he knew he was alive, and she was going to take it.

Maddie didn’t recover the scalpel, though. She didn’t look him in the eyes again. Instead, she hurriedly grabbed the nearest lever and slammed it back, disabling Danny’s restraints. His words reverberated in her skull.

_“What if I told you that I wasn’t dead?”_


End file.
